EOCC’s highest organ is its General Assembly, with gathers once a year. Composed of representatives of members of the association, the General Assembly defines the general policy orientations, elects the members of the Board, create the working groups, define their missions and powers and approve their activity reports, and finally approves the budget and accounts of the association.
Antoine Faure (President)
Antoine Faure is EOCC President from April 2025. Antoine Faure joined the Ecocert Group in 2001, and has over than 16 years of experience in conformity assessment in organic agriculture sector. With a Master degree in Agriculture (Engineer), he works currently as Expert in the area of certification systems both in terms of operators, control bodies as competent authorities (national system for approving control bodies). Antoine has also a specific expertise in the interpretation of regulations and norms. Finally, as Ecocert Group representative he works internationally in relation with several institutions or competent authorities including the European Commission. From 2013, he is the coordinator of the EOCC Working Group Import and of the EOCC Task Force TRACES.
Juan Car
los Perez Montero (EOCC Vice-President)
Juan Carlos studied Agricultural Technical Engineer in Seville from 1991 to 1995.
From 1998 till 2005, he has been CAAE inspector (mainly UE organic Schemes but also some others like NOP, Biosuisse, GlobalG.A.P of individuals,etc).
From 2005 till 2014, he has been in charge of control of inspections compatibilizying this charge with some inspections (adding some new certification schemes like Naturland, Krav, IBD Brazil Organic, Soil Association, BRC, GlobalG.A.P Option 2, etc). In this period, he developed the quality system for all inspection schemes that CAAE was related with and the training and surveillance of the 35 existing inspectors at this date.
Since, 2014, he is Technical Manager in CAAE and the Scheme Manager for GlobalG.A.P Scheme. Regarding organic Schemes, he is in charge of the international relationship with all our partners and the owners of the private labels. Regarding EU Certification, he is in charge of the interpretations of the regulations.
Juan Carlos owns a small organic horticulture project in Villanueva del Ariscal (Seville). Since 2016, he is an active member of some of the EOCC Groups (Imports, Residues, Regulation, Risk assessment).
Farzaneh Mahdipour (Secretary General)
Farzaneh holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Engineering, obtained from Azad University, Iran (1998–2001). She subsequently completed a Master of Business Administration (MBA) with a specialization in Strategic Management at Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran, which she successfully concluded in 2021. Building on this foundation, she recently earned her Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA).
Following a dynamic and high-profile career within leading international corporations, Farzaneh refocused her professional trajectory toward the environmental sector. Her work has concentrated on the implementation of ISO 14000 environmental management standards, as well as on water and wastewater treatment systems, including reverse osmosis technologies.
Her engagement with the organic sector commenced in 2010, when she assumed the role of Quality Manager at an Iranian control body. Over the past 15 years, she has developed deep and comprehensive expertise in organic regulations, particularly the EU Organic Regulation and the first edition of the Iranian National Standard (INSO 11000).
In recognition of her expertise, she was appointed to the Technical Committee of the Institute of Standards and Industrial Research of Iran (ISIRI), where she contributed to the revision of the second edition of the Iranian National Organic Standards.
Between 2015 and 2018, she played a pivotal role in the further development of the Iranian certification body, which led to her recruitment by an international certification organization. In this capacity, she was responsible for enhancing quality assurance processes and delivering international inspection, certification, and program management services in accordance with various organic standards and regulations, including the EU Organic Regulation, NOP, Bio Suisse, Naturland, European Biochar, and Donau Soja. Her responsibilities spanned a range of certification scopes, such as production, processing, wild collection, and group certification systems (ICS).
In 2018, she was appointed Head of the International Division at bio.inspecta AG, and concurrently served as a member of the company’s Management Board. She will conclude her tenure at bio.inspecta at the end of May 2025 and will assume a new position at SRS GmbH in Germany as of June 2025. In this role, she will focus on the strategic expansion of international activities related to EU organic certification in third countries.
Since 2021, she has cultivated a close working relationship with the European Organic Certifiers Council (EOCC), where she currently serves as Coordinator of the Task Force on Operators, focusing on the implementation of Regulation (EU) 2018/848.
Farzaneh was elected to the EOCC Board during the General Assembly in Brussels in 2023. At the General Assembly held in Seville in 2025, she was elected General Secretary of the EOCC Board.
Roberto Maresca (Board member)
Roberto Maresca studied Biological Sciences at the University Federico II in Naples. He then attended the annual professional training course on the quality of agri-food sector held by IFOA in Modena.
At the beginning of 2011, he started working at CCPB srl.
During these years at the CCPB srl, he has been covering diverse positions in the various offices.
From 2017, he hold the role of manager of the International certification schemes (NOP, JAS, COR, Bio Brazil, Bio Korea) and for the International organic private standards such as KRAV, Naturland, Bio Suisse. He is also a CCPB recognized inspector, regularly performing inspection activity for different organic schemes, especially international ones. As CCPB contact person, he took part to diverse European projects, such as the one on risk-based inspections IRM Organic (a Lifelong Learning Project) or currently the one on organic animal welfare AWARE (an ERASMUS + Project).
At EOCC level, he has been an active of the Task Force Residues since 2016. As such, he actively took part to the EOCC Residues datas collection 2016 and 2017. Since 2018, he is the coordinator of the EOCC Task Force OFIS.
Roberto has been elected as a EOCC Board member during the General Assembly of April 2018
Federica Nasi (Treasurer)
Federica is an agronomist with a degree in agricultural sciences and technologies.Since 2007 she works in the organic certification sector at Control Body CCPB. At the beginning she was involved in several organic certification schemes, especially in the EU Regulation but also NOP, JAS, COR and other European Standards like Biosuisse, KRAV, Naturland.In 2016 she became Scheme Manager for EU Regulation and in 2019 she has held the position of Control and Certification Manager for all Organic Schemes.Currently Federica is responsible at CCPB for the management of control and certification activities in the organic area both at national level and outside the European Union relating to certification in Third Countries.
Federica has been elected as a EOCC Board member during the last General Assembly of April 2025.
Maria Soledad Ortiz (Board member)
Maria Soledad Ortiz is an accomplished Ecuadorian agricultural engineer, who graduated from the Central University of Ecuador. She holds two prestigious master’s degrees: a Master of Science in Agricultural Science and Resource Management in the Tropics and Sub-Tropics (ARTS) from the University of Bonn, and an MBA in Business Administration from OHM Professional School, Nuremberg Institute of Technology Georg Simon Ohm—both located in Germany.
With over fifteen years of professional experience, Maria Soledad has specialized in the certification of organic production in third countries. She began her career in organic certification with Kiwa BCS in Ecuador (formerly BCS) before relocating to Germany to work at the headquarters of Kiwa BCS ÖKO Garantie GmbH. Throughout her journey, she has taken on various roles, including assessor, pre-reviewer, certifier, and implementing data systems for the certification process within the international department at Kiwa BCS. For the past two years, she has served as the EU scheme manager for third countries, one of the most significant organic regulations worldwide.
In 2024, she was elected to the Board, where her contributions are highly valued for providing insights from beyond European borders. Her motivation and engagement in the field are evident, making her a key player in advancing organic certification practices globally.
Sergiy Galashevskyy (Board member)
Sergiy Galashevskyy has been involved in the organic sector of Ukraine for more than 8 years. He started working in 2007 for the certification body Organic Standard. From inspector, he became head of inspection department and holds since the end of 2008 the position of General Manager. Under Sergiy’s management, Organic Standard became one of the leading organic certification bodies in Ukraine. Sergiy was born in 1983. He graduated from the Bila Tserkva State Agrarian University (Agronomy Faculty) in 2006 and in the same year he also studied organic agriculture in Great Britain (Writtle college, University of Essex). In 2014, he finished his MBA education with specific topic of diploma work “Marketing strategies of organic certification body”. Sergiy is an active player of the Ukrainian organic sector; he belongs to official working group 8.2 Organic Farming and also takes part in the process of elaboration of the Ukrainian organic law. Further, Sergiy is one of coordinators of Ukrainian Pavilion at Biofach and the annual national organic conference in the Ukraine.
He works as an expert in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova (trainings in organic agriculture, policy dialog, expertise etc.).
Within EOCC, Sergiy is the Coordinator of Task Force “Ukraine” since 2015 and a member of Working Group ‘Import’.
Sergiy is constantly improving his knowledge in various areas of organic production (certification, market development, legislation, control body management), studying experience of such countries as Switzerland, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, France, USA and implementing the acquired knowledge in order to develop organic sector in Ukraine.
Sergiy Galashevskyy has been elected as EOCC Board Member during the General Asssembly 2017, in Bologna.
Aurélie Quintin (Representative)
Aurélie took over the position of EOCC Representative in December 2016. She has more than 15 years professional experience, both in public and the private sector. Prior to joining EOCC, Aurélie was working more than 8 years in a European federation both as project manager as well as policy advisor. Before that, she had also worked as a Commercial attaché for the French Trade and Economic Mission in Düsseldorf. She holds a master’s in European law. Aurélie is a French national. Next to her mother tongue, she speaks fluently English and German.